Harbin Medical University (HMU) is located in Harbin, a beautiful city well-known for its ice and snow and reputed as “Eastern Paris”. HMU has a scenic view on the campus dotted with ancient-style buildings, with a total area of 2.36 million square meters.

HMU was founded in 1926 and features a glorious history and tradition. It originated from the combination of former Harbin Medical University (its predecessor being Harbin Special Medical School founded by Dr. Wu Liande, a medical pioneer in China) and former 1st and 2nd branch schools of China Medical University in Xingshan (its predecessor being China Red Army Health School founded in Ruijin, Jiangxi, in 1931). During the 80 years, HMU has inherited Dr. Wu Liande’s spirit “loving the motherland wholeheartedly and succeeding by self-made efforts”, carried forward China Red Army Health School’s tradition “firm political belief and excellent medical skills”, and upheld the motto “integrity from the rules and learning to promote medicine”. HMU’s strength has been increasing and become a medical school of huge capacity and distinct characteristics. HMU has now been one of the top medical schools in China. It is now a national base for basic sciences research and teaching talent development, and a key “Project 211” university in Heilongjiang Province.

The affiliated institutions of HMU include: School of Basic Medical Sciences, School of Public Health, School of Pharmacy, School of Health Administration, Department of Bioinformatics, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Graduate School, School of Adult Education (School of Continuing Education), five medical schools (affiliated hospitals), School of Dentistry, School of Nursing, and Daqing Campus. Organizations based in HMU include Center for Endemic Disease Control of CDC, National Research Center for Clinical Trial of New Drugs, Russian Language Training Center of the Ministry of Health, Heilongjiang Branch of China Medical Academy and Heilongjiang Provincial Medical Academy.

HMU has clearly defined medical programs. It is among the first group of medical universities running seven-year medical programs and has been working with Nankai University and Harbin Institute of Technology for joint teaching of seven-year program students. HMU cooperates with 5 foreign universities for joint medical programs. It has 4 first-grade doctorate degree programs including basic medical sciences, clinical medicine, public health and preventive medicine, and biology, 41 second-grade doctorate degree programs, and 49 second-grade master’s degree programs. There are 11 undergraduate programs including basic medical sciences, clinical medicine, preventive medicine, dentistry, anesthesiology, medical imaging, nursing, pharmacy, biotechnology, public affairs management and medical law. Now HMU has 5 postdoctoral research programs in preventive medicine, clinical medicine, basic medical sciences, biology and pharmacy, 1 research program in clinical pharmacy and pharmacology, and the postdoctoral research program collaborated between HMU and Zhonglong Enterprises. There are over 10,000 full-time students, among whom are over 3000 graduate students.

HMU has a reasonable discipline structure. There are 1 national key discipline, 32 provincial key disciplines, 1 incubation base of national key laboratories in biomedicine jointly established by the ministry and the province, 6 key laboratories of the ministry and the province, and 11 provincial key laboratories of higher education. Positions are available for national specially-invited professors and provincial specially-invited professors.

HMU has a number of excellent faculty members. There are now over 10,000 faculty and staff, with a well-structured combination of different ages. Of those is one academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering and one Nightingale Prize winner. Over 70 faculty members have been granted various prizes such as Chinese Outstanding Young Teacher Award, Wu Jieping Medical Research Award, and Paul Jassen Award in Pharmacy.

HMU has made remarkable scientific achievements. Significant breakthroughs have been made in China Human Genome Project, cytogenetical research on solid tumor, basic and clinical research on series of spleen preservation operation, experiment and clinical application of homogeneous in situ heart transplantation, research on the best target of antiarrhythmic drugs and etiology of Kaschin-Beck disease. In order to make full use of HMU resources, HMU cooperates with some enterprises, e.g. the Pharmaceutical R&D Center between HMU and Harbin Pharmaceutical Group, to facilitate the transformation of pharmaceutical technology to new products and lead the pharmaceutical industry at the northeastern old industrial base to rapid development. Since 2000, HMU has been granted 3 second-class awards of National Scientific and Technological Progress, 3 second-class awards of National Natural Science, over 240 research achievement awards of the ministry and the province. HMU has undertaken over 250 projects of the national Project“973”, Project “863”, and key projects of National Natural Science Foundation.

HMU boasts advanced clinical technology. The five medical schools (affiliated hospitals) are ranked at top level, of which 3 are listed among the “100 best hospitals” in China. There are over 5000 beds, 2 million outpatients and over 200 thousand inpatients per year. Allogeneic organ transplantation is a distinctive feature of HMU. Allogeneic spleen transplantation, allogeneic both hands transplantation and allogeneic single forearm transplantation have reached international level. The patient who received the allogeneic heart transplantation enjoys the best life quality in Asia. The combined treatment of large intestine cancer is well-known in China. There are 2905 beds in the other 4 non-affiliated clinical hospitals.

During the Tenth Five-Year Plan period, HMU was appraised as excellent respectively in the assessment on seven-year medical program by the Ministry of Education, the assessment on the National Base of Science at HMU by the National Natural Science Foundation, and the assessment on basic medical education by the Ministry of Education. HMU enjoys a good reputation in its educational quality. As the first medical school in China, HMU received the pilot accreditation on basic medical education referenced by WFME Global Standards, and has achieved all the 36 WFME basic standards, of which 25 have reached quality improvement standards. The foreign experts spoke highly of the medical education quality of the university. HMU has cooperative relations with over 40 colleges and universities in 12 countries or regions. Six specialized journal offices such as Chinese Journal of Endemiology, International Journal of Genetics and International Journal of Immunology are based at HMU. The campus network has been integrated into China Education and Research Network. HMU library has a collection of over 1.5 million books, 4707 journals and 330 thousand electronic journals and books, and can provide electronic literature search and internet information services.

HMU sticks to the educational ideology “basic medical education as the basis, discipline developments as the fundamental, graduate and long-term medical education as the priority.” To meet the health needs of the country and the region as well as economic development, HMU has become a base to cultivate creative medical students and produce high level research outcome. HMU aims to become a teaching and research-oriented medical school which is first-grade in China and well-known in the world. To fully make use of its advantages, HMU will make further contributions in achieving the objective of “rapid and all-around development” and in rejuvenating the old northeastern industrial base.